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Jean Renee Desiree Francaix (May 23, 1912, Le Mans - September 25, 1997, Paris) was a French neoclassical composer, pianist, and orchestrator, known for his prolific output and vibrant style.
Francaix's natural gifts were encouraged from an early age by his family: his father, Director of the Conservatoire of Le Mans, was a musicologist, composer, and pianist, and his mother, a teacher of singing. He was only six when he took up composing, and his first publication, in 1922, caught the attention of a composer working for the publishing house who steered the gifted boy toward a gifted teacher, Nadia Boulanger. She encouraged Francaix's career, considering the young composer to be one of the best, if not the best, of her students. Noted pianist and pedagogue Isidor Philipp also taught him. Francaix himself often played his own works, to public acclaim; notably in the premier of his Concertino for Piano and Orchestra at the festival of Baden-Baden in 1932.
He was an accomplished pianist from an early age, earning a First Prize in Piano at the Paris Conservatory (his only formal musical qualification) and was sought after for accompanying as well as solo performances.
Jean Francaix's primary occupation was his extraordinarily active compositional career. He remained prolific throughout his life; even in 1981 he described himself as "constantly composing", barely finishing one piece before beginning another, and continued thus until his death in 1997.
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